MANSFIELD — It was a win almost seven years in the making–a rare win for Ashland over Mansfield Senior at Pete Henry Gym on Friday. Brett Vipperman and Isaac White combined for 51 points of the 73-59 win as Ashland tightened its stranglehold on the Ohio Cardinal Conference championship chase.
Just how rare was the win?
The last time the Arrows won at Pete Henry Gym was Feb. 9, 2008, snapping Senior High’s 40-game home winning streak.
“It feels good to get one here. It’s been since ’07-08 since an Ashland team has won a game here,” Ashland coach Tim Fralick said. “This is an awfully tough place to play. … We feel like we accomplished something pretty big here.”
The Arrows (12-1, 8-0) opened a three-game lead in the chase for the OCC title and completed the regular season sweep of the Tygers (9-6, 6-3). Ashland beat Senior High 59-57 in Ashland in mid-December.
It’s the first time the Arrows have swept the regular season series since 2002-03. Ashland advanced to the Elite Eight that year.
“It’s a nice win against an extremely tough opponent on the road,” Fralick said. “I think we showed tonight that we’re a really good team.”
The Arrows were especially good in the opening quarter. Ashland connected on 10 of 12 field goal attempts, including five 3-pointers, and blew out to a 27-14 lead. Vipperman, a 6-foot-5 senior swingman, scored 12 of his game-high 28 points in the period.
“We’re trying to start off quickly defensively and really apply pressure,” Vipperman said. “That makes the offense flow a lot easier and lets us get easy buckets.”
Mansfield Senior, meanwhile, couldn’t stay out of its own way. The Tygers committed eight first-quarter turnovers.
“They kicked our butt. We stunk as players and we stunk as coaches,” Senior High coach J.T. Reese said. “They were better than us tonight, especially at the start.”
The Arrows have made a habit of starting fast recently. In last week’s 80-54 win at Madison, Ashland raced out to a 24-3 first-quarter lead.
“You don’t (want to play from behind),” Fralick said. “We’ve tried to do that before and it doesn’t work out because eventually you run out of gas. You expend so much energy coming back. You can trim it but in the end it hasn’t work for us.
“It was big for us to set the tone.”
Not Without a Fight: The Tygers made a game of it in the second quarter, outscoring the Arrows 14-8. Senior High cut Ashland’s advantage to 33-28 on a Marshall Levins bucket with 59 seconds remaining in the half before a Vipperman field goal with five seconds remaining gave the Arrows a 35-28 halftime lead.
Vipperman had 18 points in the first half.
“We did a great job of controlling the controllables,” Fralick said. “We executed well, we had high energy and we played together.
“Brett Vipperman was huge, especially in the first half.”
Back-Breaker: Senior High cut Ashland’s lead to 42-36 on a pair of Naradain James free throws with 3:30 remaining in the third quarter, but Ashland closed the quarter on an 11-3 run for a 53-39 lead going to the fourth. White all but sealed it when he connected on a 3-pointer and was fouled on Ashland’s opening possession of the final quarter. He completed the rare four-point play to give the Arrows a 57-39 lead.
“That was a huge and-one 3-point shot that he made to start the fourth to open up the spread a little bit, because you knew that they were going to be coming,” Fralick said. “That just opened it up a little bit more and made it that much tougher to come back.”
Trey Smith backed Vipperman and White with 12 points and five assists.
David Hall led Mansfield Senior with 12 points. Jenerio Minard added 10, while James was limited to nine points. Chioke Bradley had eight, while Asante’ Wilder and Mario Young each had seven.
“We need to do a little soul searching as players and as coaches,” Reese said. “The silver lining is we play tomorrow. We don’t have to chew on this but for a couple of hours. We’ll come back tomorrow and be better.”
Senior High is at Wooster tonight. Ashland hosts Orrville.
Junior Varsity: The Arrows forced overtime with a last-second bucket and escaped with a 45-41 win in junior varsity action. Griffin Gerwig led Ashland with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Jornell Manns topped the Tygers with 18 points.
“It feels good to get one here. It’s been since ’07-08 since an Ashland team has won a game here,” Ashland coach Tim Fralick said. “This is an awfully tough place to play.
